Sing Faster - The Stagehands' Ring Cycle

I attended the very Ring Cycle of which this documentary is about. I saw the sets and witnessed the performances as an audience member during that 1989/1990 opera season at San Francisco's War Memorial Opera House. At the time I was working in the local media industry, and had some notion of the amount of labor and effort that went into a shoot. But, after watching this documentary, I have a healthier respect for those who choose to make their life as a stage hand.As I sat in the audience some 20 years ago, I had an idea that the sets were pre-built, staged, but that all that really went on was the movement of props and sets to allow the singers to perform the next act.Boy, was I wrong. I had absolutely no notion of the incredible ballet and orchestration that went on behind the scenes for an opera like Wagner's Ring Cycle. Admittedly, this is probably one of the most elaborate operas out there. Something more prosaic does not demand the enormous amount of logistics injected and soaked up by the enormity of this opera.In short, it ain't Tennessee Williams. We're talking Wagner. And not just Wagner, but the most ambitious, prestigious and pretentious of his works.As an aside, I'll ask you, compare the amount of labor and love that went into this production, and compare it to other Ring Cycles, and I challenge you to tell me that this was not one of the best and most elaborate productions ever constructed and produced for the stage. Why? Because it is, and you can't convince me nor anyone else who's seen other productions of the Ring Cycle state otherwise.Some laughter I enjoyed during the Cycle was stifled when I watched this documentary. Notably the Fafner sequence; the scene where the great dragon, formerly a giant, extends its head from its cave to do battle with Sigfried. When that prop came out the audience let loose a collective chortle. I mean you could heard a controlled laughter when we all saw what had to be an ernest, yet ridiculous, effort to animate a dragon on the stage.But again, compared to other productions, the SF War Memorial Opera staff outshined them all, and even though their rendition of Fafner was somewhat comical, it was an actual animated dragon head, and not some static prop that other productions usually use. And, for the documentary to reveal that there were teams of stagehands pushing the base on a massive dolly, while there was a guy inside controlling the thing ... wow. That's all I can say; wow. My comical side of the time momentarily reared its head, only to be replaced by nodding admiration.Me, I thought the thing was a full sized animatronic suspended on a crane or track above the grid. But it was an actual team of people bringing Fafner to life. Again; wow.What's probably the most entertaining aspect of this piece is one of the stage leads synopsising the story, and stripping away the veneer of the spectacle to reveal the true story of deceit and greed. A story of beings that were once revered, but who more deservedly earn scorn. The path to Hel is truly paved with good intentions.This is one of many indy documentaries being shot at the time in the Bay Area, which should give the viewer a slice of life that most of use don't readily see. If I had one regret it's that I didn't know that this project was going on, or if I did, then I failed to connect with anybody working on it. The one shortcoming I think this project has is that it doesn't show much "crowd reaction" from ticket holders or Opera patrons. That would have been a welcome thing to see. Perhaps even an interview or two with some of the upper echelons. Just to get a taste of who the stagehands work for.Otherwise, enjoy this documentary.*ADDENDUM*The reason I gave this documentary 4 stars instead of 5 is because it isn't all that much of what we contemporarily define as a true documentary. That and it's kind of short. We can certainly spin the reasons for it, like perhaps giving the piece some form of artistic license by breaking the mold of traditional documentaries, but the reality is that it's more or less a case of lack of money. Which is too bad, because I personally would have loved to see more interviews with all personnel involved; upper echelons, the musicians, the cast, the people manning the box office and so forth. Instead what we're presented is simply a slice of life of preparing for the ring cycle. One team lead is interviewed throughout the piece, the rest are photographed but not solicited for any input.Getting back to the fiduciary aspect, as I stated above, I was working quite a bit in the local media industry at the time this was being shot. And shooting in San Francisco was just as expensive then as it is now. At least back then there were support services available, as opposed to today's spartan environment. So, in this regard, knowing how much crews were charging at the time, and given this was a project privately funded, I'm almost surprised we got this much footage.Still, it would have been nice to rely on some second unit student film makers from SF State, UCSF or even City College. That would've definitely added to the scope of the documentary, and given us a much greater footprint of what went on during that production as opposed to the virtual Rosetta stone we have here.Still, the film is what it is, and it's worth a look. Enjoy!

Truth is stranger than fiction and not much fiction is stranger than Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle. For any opera company the production of these three operas, 17 hours of performance is a power-play. It is as much a declaration of the company's machismo as it is an aesthetic achievement. What this short documentary proves is that the behind-the-scenes work in producing these operatic dramas is every bit as strange and beautiful as the operas.Sing Faster is a wonderful if too short documentary. One of the goals in the performing arts is to always "leave them wanting more" this documentary achieves this goal. In 57 minutes we get a taste of what the backstage working people had to be capable of and had to perform daily over the months before in the days of a Ring Cycle production. In the case of the San Francisco Opera production in 1995 the director had grandiose plans including dry ice to help generate fog and a fully articulatedhuman powered Dragon.It is possible that the director did not know the dry ice is CO2 and that his set design placed his Rhine Maidens at risk for asphyxiation. Fortunately he had stagehands who understood the need to protect the lives of the performers. In the case of the animated Dragon it took people doing the hard physical work to make this contraption function as well as another to direct this structure to achieve dramatic effects. The practice sessions for this portion of the opera were comic to look at. Another reviewer who was present for one of these performances indicates that the effect during the performance was also comic.The vast scale and complexity of this performance is made clear as we watch the construction and movement of the huge set structures. Just the business of changing the carpeting for each set is a display of virtuoso carpentry and coordination that brings to mind the same kinds of hazards and routine execution of the complex as one might see on a modern aircraft carrier flight deck.There is an element of pretentiousness in the decision to schedule the Ring Cycle and in the decision to buy the tickets. But to the stagehands and various craftspeople involved it's all in a day's work. These are people who see and hear all of the rehearsals and endure all of the performance pressures, but it is a coincidence if they have the same artistic sensibilities as is presumed in the director, the stars and the audience To hear unedited how the working people respond to and describe the ring cycle is something of a comic recitation that would make Anna Russell proud.When a stagehand makes the plea that a performer should "sing faster" so that he can get home on time, one rather suspects that a lot of people in front of and behind the curtain think that exact thought at some time during one of the 17 hours in the Ring Cycle.This documentary can be so much fun that one can forget it's about very hard work being performed at a very high level. Other reviewers speak of using this documentary as a training tool and it certainly is useful as a training tool, but it is also 57 minutes of entertainment and a lot more.I am glad that I have this movie. I've seen it more than once and I had lent it out. Others may prefer to rent it and will be satisfied with one viewing but there is a lot to Sing Faster.